12 Best Investment Blogs

Turning to a high-quality, informational blog is one of the best (and free) ways to learn more about investing. Personal finance and investing in particular, are topics more easily understood through anecdotal stories and others’ experiences.

If you’re interested in investing, be sure to check out some of the following blogs and websites. Many blogs about investing were founded by a former Wall Street professional or someone who really wanted to understand and learn how to invest with the goal of early retirement.

The people behind the blogs are knowledgeable in finance, whether they are certified financial planners or gained their knowledge of investment from their own experience and successes with the market.

Reading about their experience may help you assess your own situation, your shortcomings, and where you need to improve.

Some blogs listed below are larger publications that offer solid advice and informational material — all a part of the learning process that will help you become a better investor.

1. Good Financial Cents

Jeff Rose is a certified financial planner who is the voice behind Good Financial Cents. The blog offers easy-to-understand content through first-person articles and experiences.

He tells the story of meeting with a couple in their 60s who had only saved $30,000 for retirement. This jarring meeting prompted him to look at his own finances, and he started saving more strategically and maxing out his 401k.

Rose now writes about how to maximize your money and invest wisely for retirement. His blog features stories and general personal finance tips, like how to improve your credit and pay off debt.

2. Don’t Quit Your Day Job

Don’t you just love the name of this blog? DQYDJ.com is a blog that helps you learn more about economics and find tools and calculators useful to understanding your own finances.

This blog is dedicated to providing tons of calculators, visualizations, and articles to help you learn more about investing for retirement. The blog calls itself a “personal finance site with a twist — we produce original research, visualizations, calculators and tools for our readers, along with some of the most well researched investing and economics articles you can find on the web.”

Those calculators can tell you, for instance, what your net income percentile is, compared to the rest of the U.S. Articles can tell you about investment returns from the S&P 500, Bitcoin, and inflation trends.

3. Financial Samurai

Financial Samurai has been around since 2009, during the height of the financial crisis. The site was created by Sam Dogen, who worked in the finance industry.

He realized early on that he needed an “exit strategy” and decided to aggressively save 50 percent of his after-tax income.

This, coupled with wise financial investments helped to create a lifestyle he envisioned, and the site features articles that will help you understand how you can also create passive income and retire early. A recent article called “How much people should’ve saved in their 401(k)s” got over 800 comments.

Financial Samurai offers in-depth reviews of financial products and tangible advice about how to be more strategic with your money.

The site’s top navigation is really impressive. It’s highly organized and makes it easy for you to find articles, resources, tools, and financial products. The “Start Investing” section is a helpful tool for beginners that breaks down the exact steps you need to take in order to start investing properly. The site wants to make investing simple so you can become a better investor and entrepreneur.

5. Wallet Hacks

Jim Wang founded Wallet Hacks with the intention of focusing on actions to help better his financial situation. He had previously started a site called Bargaineering, which he then flipped and sold in a five-year period for $3 million, before starting Wallet Hacks.

The best thing about Wallet Hacks is not just the great content, but the way it’s written and presented. The articles are easy to follow, and a lot of the content is just plain old interesting.

6. Retire By 40

Yes, please! Who doesn’t want to retire by 40?

Retire by 40 was created by Joe Udo, who retired from his engineering career to become a stay-at-home dad and blogger by age 38. Like many financial bloggers, Udo started the blog to keep track of his own early retirement journey and share his insights and experience.

The site focuses on long-term investment strategies that deal with crowdfunded real estate companies like RealtyShares, P2P lending through companies such as Lending Club, and rental properties. These are all investment methods that Udo tried himself.

7. The Big Picture

The Big Picture, created by Ritholz Wealth Management owner and author Barry Ritholz, features articles about the economy and investing. The award-winning site was launched in 2013 and the TED blog placed it on its list of Top 100 Websites You Should Know and Use.

The blog features a roundup of recommended articles from other sources such as The New Yorker, Slate and The New York Times about macroeconomic trends (i.e. “The Gig Economy Is Shrinking”), global debt and taxes. Ritholz also gives his take on the most important issues of the day.

8. Vanguard Blog

One of the world’s largest investment management companies, Vanguard, features the Vanguard Blog, which features stories about investing, retirement and stocks. The blog offers insights and opinions from Vanguard’s experts.

The site is very simple but offers articles that help you understand things like required minimum distributions (RMDs) and how to prepare your stock portfolio.

Vanguard was founded by Jack C. Bogle, who democratized investing by launching the first index funds. Bogle also has his own blog, The Bogle eBlog.

9. Seeking Alpha

Seeking Alpha is a crowd-sourced service that offers insights from investors and industry experts on the buy side, instead of the sell side as is the case with most other investing sites. Writers recommend stocks to invest in and must disclose their own holdings in any stock they recommend.

Other articles focus on market news, stock ideas, portfolio management, marketing forecasts, investing strategies and earnings reports. The site heavily focuses on investing, so if you’re a beginner investor, some of the content might not be so easy to understand.

10. Zen Investor

Zen Investor promises to make you a better investor. Ex-Wall Street investment professional T. Erik Conley, the former head of equity trading at Northern Trust Co, created the site.

The site offers tangible moves you can make, tutorials, and courses to help you understand how you can invest more wisely. It even has a quiz on its homepage to help you find out how good you are at investing.

Zen Investor also offers coaching and consulting services to help you improve your investment strategies.

11. Investopedia

Investopedia offers valuable educational content so you can better understand investment terminology and concepts. Its investment section has articles about robo-advisers, strategies and the year’s best tech ETFs.

It also has the latest investment news and an investing basics series to help you make more informed investing decisions.

12. The Balance

The Balance has a robust investing section with content that spans across all levels including beginners. It offers investment tips, news, and educational articles about value investing, the economy, real estate and retirement.

The site also has a variety of articles that help you learn, including “how-tos” and tips. The articles are easy to understand, which is a big plus if you’re new to investing.

4 ways you can learn about investing, in addition to blogs

Blogs are great ways to supplement your learning and get the latest news and information about investing. However, if you really want to learn how to invest, go beyond your blog search. Gain a deeper understanding and get more of your questions answered through books and your network of friends, family, and colleagues.

Here’s how to take it a few steps further:

1. Read books about investing

If you’re not a big reader, start with an audiobook or two. Reading books will help you get a deeper grasp of a particular topic. Here are three top books about investing.

“The Bogleheads’ Guide to Investing” by Jack Bogle

Everyone who wants to learn about personal finance and investing needs to pick up this book, which some consider to be the bible of long-term investing.

“The Bogleheads’ Guide to Investing” teaches you about index funds and the long-term investing mindset you need to have. Bogle, the father of index funds, says you can’t survive a comfortable retirement without a long-term investment strategy.

Even when the market isn’t doing all that great and you lose money, you need to stick through it and not pull your money out in panic.

“You Can Retire Early!” by Deacon Hayes

Well Kept Wallet founder Deacon Hayes wrote a book about how to retire early and the best ways to get there. “You Can Retire Early” teaches you to properly plan and how to select the right retirement vehicles.

“The Intelligent Investor” by Benjamin Graham

“The Intelligent Investor” is an oldie but goodie. Graham wrote the book in 1949 and focused on the basic rules of solid investing. Read through it, especially if you’re a beginner investor. Graham gives credence to his philosophy of “value investing,” which can help you avoid mistakes and focus on investments that make sense for retirement.

2. Talk to financial advisors who can help you

Sometimes, talking to people over the phone or in person is the best way to understand your situation. A financial advisor can help attach real numbers to the goals you’ve set for yourself.

Also, not all financial advisors charge an arm and a leg. Many will have initial conversations with you for no charge.

Check your local area to see if there are any low-cost or free financial services that offer classes or meetups.

3. Check out local meetups

The best ways to learn about something new is to simply immerse yourself with others who have “been there, done that.” Meetups are great ways to meet new people and learn how to better your finances through their personal experience.

Check Meetup.com or Eventbrite to see what kind of financially-focused gatherings are happening in your area.

4. Reach out to family and friends

Ask your friends, family, financially savvy colleagues, and mentors about their experiences with investing and saving.

Time is of the essence, so come prepared with a list of questions and take notes.

Remember to offer to buy them a cup of coffee or tea!

Choose your favorite blogs

Learning how to invest for your retirement or taking your investment knowledge to the next level through the best investment blogs and sites are fantastic ways to prepare for the future.

It takes time to learn how to improve your finances through investing and you won’t be able to fully understand it just by reading a few articles. In order to learn and grow your investment knowledge, you need to immerse yourself in it. This process may involve regularly reading through blogs and websites. Use the experiences others share on their blogs and subscribe to your favorite ones.

To gain a deeper understanding you should also read books, talk to financial advisors, attend meetups, and have many conversations with your network of friends, family and colleagues.

Have I missed any? Share your favorite investment blog with us in the comments below.

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2 responses to “12 Best Investment Blogs”

I visit several of the above on a regular basis, especially Seeking Alpha. Two others I’d add are The Motley Fool (they have several daily articles with stock tips and basic company analysis) and BullMarkets.co (a daily market analysis using technical data).